The present invention disclosed herein relates to a nozzle performing a developing process by supplying developing liquid on a surface of a substrate after a resist coating process and an exposing process, and an apparatus and a method for processing a substrate using the nozzle.
In general, when a semiconductor device is manufactured, a circuit pattern is formed by coating photoresist on a semiconductor wafer as a target substrate, performing an exposing process to transfer a mask pattern to the photoresist, and developing the photoresist.
When the photoresist is developed, the so-called puddle method is typically used in which developing liquid is continuously supplied from a nozzle to a substrate, and the developing liquid is gathered only for a predetermined time in a pattern-forming surface, so as to develop a pattern of a photoresist layer.
The puddle method widely uses a so-called slit nozzle that has a discharging opening, a length of which is greater than the diameter of a substrate. Developing methods using slit nozzles are classified into a rotating method in which a substrate is rotated through about 180° while discharging developing liquid from a slit nozzle, and a scanning method in which a slit nozzle is moved in a predetermined direction parallel to a substrate without rotating the substrate.
In the rotating method, a substrate is rotated through 180° in the state where a nozzle is fixed. In this case, since fresh developing liquid is always supplied to a center portion of a substrate, the center portion is excessively developed relative to an edge portion.
In the scanning method, developing liquid is supplied to form a puddle in a substrate through a discharging opening having a length greater than the diameter of the substrate. In this case, since the developing liquid is supplied to a region out of the substrate, the developing liquid is wasted, and a process time is increased.
In addition, since a typical nozzle has a single discharging opening, it is difficult to concentrate developing liquid to a specific region.
Furthermore, when a nozzle has a short slit-shaped discharging opening, developing liquid is discharged to a substrate while moving the nozzle. Thus, process uniformity is degraded by vibration due to the moving of the nozzle and driving errors of driving devices.